This is the 39th year of the Native Plant Conference at Western Carolina University. This Saturday there is one big difference at the annual event.
The Cullowhee Native Plant Conference is the largest and oldest native plant conference in the Southeast. That’s according to Adam Bigelow, one of the organizers. He runs Bigelow Botanical Excursions in Jackson County.
“One of my favorite things about this conference is it is a professional conference, but it's not specific to any trade or field of study. We get horticulturists and nursery people and landscape designers. We also get botanists. We get educators. We get people who manage public gardens. We get people who manage public land. And then we also have a large amount of people who are native plant enthusiasts and home gardeners,” said Bigelow.
This year it has the largest attendance in 20 years according to Western Carolina University, where the event is held. There are 394 registered attendees plus 25 virtual participants attending the conference which started Wednesday.
The conference was virtual last year and cancelled the year before due to COVID. (The 39 years doesn’t include the virtual conference.)
“Like everybody else we've missed it for the last couple years, but we've come back in gangbusters this year. [I] couldn't be more happy to see all my old friends and make new friends and buy a bunch of plants and learned a lot about plants along the way,” said Bigelow.
For the first time it will be open to the public on Saturday for a plant sale and presentations centered on garden pollinators at the Ramsey Center on WCU’s campus. The sale will run from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.
One of the focuses of the conference this year is garden maintenance. For Bigelow, planting native plants in your yard encourages indigenous insects and helps the overall ecosystem.
“[It’s] one of the best ways that a homeowner and individual person can have a big impact on this thing we call helping to save the world from impending doom and apocalypse,” said Bigelow.
The Saturday presentations will feature “Plants of Promise” by Katie Davis from 9-9:30 am, followed by “Let’s Talk Pollinator Gardening: Plan, Plant and Maintain Successful and Beautiful Pollinator Gardens” with Denisha Carly and Anne Spafford from 9:45-10:45am. The third talk is Shelby Jackson’s “Great Native Plants for the Home Garden” at 11-11:45 am.
You might know that summer is not a good time to plant. Bigelow has a mantra for that.
“There's an old adage that there's three best times to do things: there's the best time, the second-best time and when you can,” said Bigelow.
When it comes to planting trees, shrubs and perennial wildflowers, Bigelow explains that the best time to plant is in the fall. The second-best time is the spring. So right now, in the middle of summer would be ‘when you can.’ But he advises that you can keep plants inside during the hotter months and water them until there is a better time to plant.
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